This time, it stayed on for ~24 hours. I am not going to turn it on again today as the crane inspection is tomorrow and we plan to keep the VEA a laser safe area for speedy crane inspection.

But what is the next step? If these diode temps maximize the power output of the NPRO, then it isn't a good idea to raise the TEC setpoint futher, so should I just turn it on again with the same settings?

I did not turn the HEPA down on the PSL enclosure. I also turned off the NPROs at EX and EY so now all the four 1064nm lasers in the VEA are turned OFF (for crane inspection).

I turned the 2W NPRO back on again at ~4pm local time, dialing the injection current up from 0-2A in ~2 mins. I noticed today that the lasing only started at 1A, whereas just last week, it started lasing at 0.5A. After ~5 minutes of it being on, I measured 950 mW after the 11/55 MHz EOM on the PSL table. The power here was 1.06 W in January, so ~💯  mW lower now. 😮 

I found out today that the way the python FSS SLOW PID loop is scripted, if it runs into an EZCA error (due to the c1psl slow machine being dead), it doesn't handle this gracefully (it just gets stuck). I rebooted the crate for now and the MC autolcoker is running fine again. 

NPRO turned off again at ~8pm local time after Anjali was done with her data taking. I measured the power again, it was still 950mW, so at least the output power isn't degrading over 4 hours by an appreciable amount...

Per instructions from Coherent, I made the some changes to the NPRO settings. The value we were operating at is in the column labelled "Operating value", while that in the Innolight test datasheet is in the rightmost column. I changed the Xtal temp and pump current to the values Innolight tested them at (but not the diode temps as they were close and they require a screwdriver to adjust), and turned the laser on again at ~1245pm local time. The acromag channels are recording the diagnostic information.

update 2:30pm - looking at the trend, I saw that D2 TGuard channel was reporting 0V. This wasn't the case before. Suspecting a loose contact, I tightened the DSub connectors at the controller and Acromag box ends. Now it too reports ~10V, which according to the manual signals normal operation. So if one sees an abrupt change in this channel in the long trend since 1245pm, that's me re-seating the connector. According to the manual, an error state would be signalled by a negative voltage at this pin, up to -12V. Also, the Innolight manual says pin 13 of the diagnostics connector is indicating the "Interlock" state, but doesn't say what the "expected" voltage should be. The newer manual Coherent sent me has pin13 listed as "Do not use".

1. Increased PSL HEPA Variac from 30 to 100% to get more airflow.
2. All of the TEC setpoints seem cold to me, so I increased the laser crystal temperature to 30.6 C
3. Adjusted the diode TEC setpoints individually to optimize the PMC REFL power (unlocked). DTEC A = 22.09 C, DTEC B = 21.04 C
4. locked PMC at 1900 PT; let's see how long it lasts.

My hunch is that the TECs are working too hard and can't offload the heat onto the heat sinks. As the diode's degrade, more of the electrical power is converted to heat in the diodes rather than 808 nm photons. So hopefully the increased airflow will help.

I tried to increase the DTEC setpoints, but that seems to detune them too far from the laser absorption band, so that's not very efficient for us. IN any case, if we end up changin the laser temperature, we'll have to adjust the ALS lasers to match, and that will be annoying.

The office area was very cold and the HVAC air flow stronger than usual. I changed the setpoint on the thermostat near Steve's desk from 71 to 73F at 1830 today.

Also, Kiwamu has modified the layout drawing to add the green PLL stuff. This has collapsed the reference cavity's wave function placing it close to its original position.

WE (maybe Valera and Steve) can now put the reference cavity back on the table.

- The PMC REFL PD was moved from the temporary location to the one called for by the PSL layout (picture attached). The leakage beams were dumped.

- The FSS reference cavity was aligned using temporary periscope and scanned using NPRO temperature sweep. The amplitude of the sweep (sine wave 0.03 Hz) was set such that the PMC control voltage was going about 100 V p-p with. With rough alignment the visibility was as high as 50% - it will be better when the cavity is locked and better aligned but not better than 80% expected from the mode astigmatism that Tara and I measured on Thursday. The astigmatism appear to come from the FSS AOM as it depends on the AOM drive. We reduced the drive control voltage from 5 V to 4V beyond that the diffraction efficiency went below 50%. The FSS REFL PD was set up for this measurement as shown in the attached picture. There is also a camera in transmission not shown in the picture.

Rana and I were poking around on the PSL table today, getting a few more items raised to the correct height.

I checked the polarization state of the new NPRO by using a HWP to minimize the transmission through a PBS cube, and then compared the power transmitted through the cube vs. reflected.  When the NPRO current was 0.772 \pm 0.001 (as read on the LCD), the transmission through the cube was 1.44mW, while the reflected was 10.53mW.  The reading of the Ophir power meter with no incident light was 0.03mW.  This factor of 10 means that the NPRO beam is ~10% circularly polarized and ~90% linearly polarized.  In order to improve the beam, we need a Quarter Wave Plate, which it turns out we don't have.  We need a QWP!

After that, using the linearly polarized part of my beam (maximizing the transmission through the PBS by rotating my HWP by 45deg), I tried to tune the angle of the polarizers that Rana pulled out of the MOPA.  I think I'm confused / too tired, because I can only get the polarizer to reflect a bunch of light, and I can't get it to pass any significant amount of light through, no matter where in its actuation range I put it (It's on a rotation stage with a few degrees of range).  It should just be a Brewster's Angle thing, and since I already have P-pol coming through the BS cube, this shouldn't be so hard.....

In any case, it may not be useful to do the final fine tuning of these polarizers until they are in their final places.  The hacky stack of mounts that I have has some slop in the position / alignment of the base of the polarizer, so no matter what we'll have to redo the tuning after the mounts are finalized.

To bypass the polarizer issue, I just used cubes. One I took from the FSS-Refcav path and the other from the power control part of the old MOPA, just downstream of the MOPA's periscope.

We'll swab these out with the thin-film polarizers after we get the mounts made.

With the cubes in, I also installed the Faraday + its 1/2-wave plate. The transmission looks good and we're getting into the PMC and its flashing a TEM00 mode sometimes. I set up a signal generator to drive the SLOW actuator by 1 FSR at 0.1 Hz.

I have set up a PMC transmission camera and transPD so that its easy to align. The flashing mode already allows us to align most of the rest of the table (except FSS).

Our next step should be to run the cables for locking the PMC:

1. RF cables to the PMC_REFL
2. Dsub for the PMC RFPD
3. HV cable between the PMC servo board and the PMC PZT (why is this not RED? we have to make sure to abide by the cabling color code).
4. RF cable from 35.5 MHz Frequency Reference card to the PMC EOM via the RF summing box on the table.

On Tuesday, we need to make sure that all of our mounts' drawings are in the cue for the shop. I'll put the list of mounts onto the PSL upgrade wiki page.

We also have to come up with a plan for wiring some of the 2W NPRO's channels into the cross-connect so that we can have some laser channels recorded by EPICS.

1. Steve is handling the mount height increase for the PMC and RC steering mirrors, as well as a mount (non-steerable) for the ISS' AOM.
2. Rana is working on the laser mount.
3. Jenne is drawing and getting the PMC mount made.
4. We got the lenses from CVI for the mode matching, but not the metric screws for the laser mounting. I am tempted to tap holes in the laser base.

I am feeling that it is ok to carefully make new holes and threads as far as the holes do not penetrate the plate.
The thickness of the plate can be measured by the four holes at the corners.

 OK. Today we did the same type of measurement for the Y arm laser as was done for the X arm laser here: http://nodus.ligo.caltech.edu:8080/40m/3759 

And attached here is a preliminary plot of the outcome - oddities with adding on the fitted equations, but they go as follows

(Red)    T_yarm = 1.4435*T_PSL - 14.6222

(Blue)    T_yarm = 1.4223*T_PSL - 10.9818

(Green) T_yarm = 1.3719*T_PSL - 6.3917

It's a bit of a messy plot - should tidy it up later...

 I'm going to take the easy question - What are the pink data points??

And I'm going to answer the easy question - they're additional beat frequency temperature pair positions which seem to correspond to additional lines of beat frequencies other than the three highlighted, but that we didn't feel we had enough data points to make it worthwhile fitting a curve.

It's still not entirely clear where the multiple lines come from though - we think they're due to the lasers starting to run multi-mode, but still need a bit of thought on that one to be sure...

The good news is that we seem to be running in a linear region of the PSL laser with a degree or so of range before the PSL Innolight laser starts to run multi-mode. On the attached graph we are currently running the PSL at 32.26degrees (measured) which puts us in the lower left corner of the plot. The blue data is the Lightwave set temperature (taken from the display on the laser controller) and the red data is the Lightwave laser crystal measured temperature (taken from the 10V/degC calibrated diagnostic output on the back of the laser controller - between pins 2 and 4).

The other good news is that we can see the transition between the PSL laser running in one mode and running in the next mode along. The transition region has no data points because the PMC has trouble locking on the multi-mode laser output - you can tell when this is happening because, as we approach the transition the PMC transmitted power starts to drop off and comes back up again once we're into the next mode region (top left portion of the plot).

The fitted lines for the region we're operating in are:

Y_arm_Temp_meas = 0.95152*T_PSL + 3.8672

Y_arm_Temp_set = 0.87326*T_PSL + 6.9825

X_arm and Y_arm vs PSL comparison.

Just a quick check of the performance of the X arm and Y arm lasers in comparison to the PSL. Plotting the data from the X arm vs PSL and Y arm vs PSL on the same plot shows that the X arm vs the PSL has no observable trending of mode-hopping in the laser, while the Y arm vs the PSL does. Suspect this is due to the fact that the X arm and PSL are both Innolight lasers with essentially identical geometry and crystals and they'll tend to mode-hop at roughly the same temperatures - note that the Xarm data is rough grained resolution so it's likely that any mode-hop transitions have been skipped over. The Lightwave on the other hand is a very different beast and has a different response, so won't hop modes at the same temperatures.

Given how close the PSL is to one of the mode-transition regions where it's currently operating (32.26 degC) it might be worth considering shifting the operating temperature down one degree or so to around 31 degC? Just to give a bit more headroom. Certainly worth bearing in mind if problems are noticed in the future.

This afternoon Q helped me put in some temporary PDs for checking for any mode hopping behavior in our 3 main lasers. 

Q helped me install PDA55s on each of the lasers (I did the ends, he did the PSL) so that we could do the mode hop temperature check.  For the Yend, I took the leakage transmission through the first Y1 steering mirror after the laser. This beam was dumped, so I replaced the dump with a PDA55. For the Xend, the equivalent mirrors are too close to the edge of the table, so I put in a spare Y1, and reflect most of the light to a beam dump.  The leakage transmission then goes to a PDA55.  Note that for both of these cases, no alignment of main laser path mirrors was touched, so we should just be able to remove them when we're through.  For the PSL, I believe that Q took the rejected light from one of the PBSes before the PMC. 

The end temporary PDs are using the TRX / TRY cables, so we will be looking at the C1:LSC-TR[x,y] channels for the power of the end lasers.  The PSL's temporary PD is connected to the PMC REFL cable.  For the end PDs, since I had filter banks available, I shuttered the end lasers and removed the dark offset.  I then changed the gains to 1, so the values are in raw counts.  The usual transmission normalization gains are noted in one of the control room notebooks.

I did a slow ezcastep and ramped the temperature of all 3 lasers over about an hour.  Since we usually use the PSL around FSS slow slider value of zero, I swept that from -10 to +10.  Since we usually use the Xend laser at around 10,000 counts, I swept that from 0 to 20,000.  For the Yend laser, it is usually around -10,000 counts, so I swept it from -20,000 to 0.  ezcastep -s 0.2 C1:ALS-X_SLOW_SERVO2_OFFSET +1,20000 C1:ALS-Y_SLOW_SERVO2_OFFSET +1,20000 C1:PSL-FSS_SLOWDC +0.001,20000


I was looking for something kind of similar to what Koji saw when he did this kind of sweep for the old MOPA (elog #2008), but didn't see any power jumps that looked suspicious.

Here is the PSL:

The Xend:

And the Yend:

[Jon, Gautam, Johannes]

Summary: In support of making a proof-of-concept RF measurement of the SRC Gouy phase, we've implemented a PLL of the aux. 700mW NPRO laser frequency to the PSL. The lock was demonstrated to hold for minutes time scales, at which point the slow (currently uncontrolled) thermal drift of the aux. laser appears to exceed the PZT dynamic range. New (temporary) hardware is set up on an analyzer cart beside the PSL launch table.

Next steps:

- Characterize PLL stability and noise performance (transfer functions).

- Align and mode-match aux. beam from the AS table into the interferometer.

- With the IFO locked in a signal-recycled Michelson configuration, inject broadband (swept) AM sidebands via the aux. laser AOM. Coherently measure the reflection of the driven AM from the SRC.

- Experiment with methods of creating higher-order modes (partially occluding the beam vs. misaligning into, e.g., the output Faraday isolator). The goal is identify a viable techinque that is also possible at the sites, where the squeezer laser serves as the aux. laser.

The full measurement idea is sketched in the attached PDF.

Some notes about the setup and work at the PSL table today, Jon can add to / correct me.

• All equipment for the phase locking now sit on a cart that is on the west side of the MC beam tube, near ITMX chamber.
• Cables have been routed through the space between the PSL enclosure and the optical table.
• HEPA was turned up for this work, now it has been turned down to the nominal level of 30%.
• Alignment into the PMC had degraded a bit - I tweaked it and now MC transmission is up at ~15600 which is a number I am used to. We still don't have a PMC transmission monitor since the slow ADC failure.

The reference cavity vacuum chamber temp is plotted starting Feb 22 of 2005

This plot suggest that the MINCO temp controller is not working properly.

Valera and I installed the the temp sensor and the interface box that Rana fixed. This may help with diagnosing the PSL drift.

 I was wrong. Rana did not fix the interface box. I removed the interface box and turned down the HEPA flow  from 100 to 20% on the Variac.

Attached is the control loop diagram when main laser is locked to IMC and a single arm (XARM) is locked to the transmitted light from IMC.

Valera and I placed F 572.7 mm lens ~15 cm away  from the ang  qpd (in the same mount with ND filter) so that two qpds see different combination of ang and pos motion - there was no lenses prior to this change. The beam diameter is reduced to ~half .

[Anchal, Koji]

Removed the top sheet

• Opened first from the door side so that any dust would spill outside.
• Then rolled the sheet inward to meet in the middle.
• Repeated this twice for the 2 HEPA filters.

Removed the sheets on the table

• Lifted sheet up making sure the top side face outside always.
• Rolled it sideways halfway through.
• Cut down the sheet vertically.
• Slided the doors to the other side and rolled the remaining half.
• On the door side, the sheets above the ALS optics were simply lifted off.

Restarting PSL

• Turned on the HEPAs at the max speed
• Switched on laser to jsut above the threshold
  • Before the 1st eom, power was 20mW 
  • After the EOM/AOM, 18mW. So about 90% transmission through all polarizing optics.
  • We saw the resonances of the PMC but could not lock it even with highest gain available (30 dB).
• Increased the input power to PMC to 100mW
  • Locked the PMC at 30dB gain
  • The transmitted power was ~50-60 mW. (Had to use power meter suspended by hand only.
  • The right before the IMC (after the 2nd EOM) 48mW. So none of the alignment was lost.
• Opened the PSL shutter.
• We were able to see IMC reflection signal.
• We were also able to see IMC catching lock as the servo was left ON earlier.
• Switched off the servo.
• Decided to increase the power while watching PMC Trans/Refl and IMC REFL
• Injection diode current to innolight was increased slowly to 2.10A. Saw a mod hopping region aroun 1.8A.
• We recovered the PMC Trans >0.7 V.
• PZT was near the edge, so moved by one FSR.
• The PMC refelction signal is still shown in red at around 48 mV.

Back to control room

• IMC was locked almost immediately by manually finding the lock while keeping IMC WFS off to preserve the offsets from yesterday.
• Then switch on IMC WFS. Working good.
• Then unlocked the servo and switched on IMC Autolocker. Lock was caught immediately.

Decided to start locking the arms

• The arm transmissions were flashing but at 0.2~0.3 level.
• Decided to adjust TT1 and TT2 Pitch and Yaw to align the light going into the arms.
• This made TRY ~0.6 / TRX ~0.8 at the peak of the flashing
• Locked the arms. (By switching on C1:LSC-MODE_SELECT which engages all servos).
• Used ASS to align Yarm then align Xarm. Procedure:
  • Sitemap > ASC > c1ass
  • Open striptool to look at progress. ! Scripts YARM > striptool.
  • Switch on ASS. ! More Scripts > ON
  • Wait for the TRY to reach to around 0.97.
  • Freeze the outputs. ! Scripts > Freeze Outputs.
  • Offload the offsets to preserve the output. ! More Scripts > OFFLOAD OFFSETS.
  • Switch off ASS. ! More Scripts > OFF
  • Repeted this for XARM.
• At the end, both XARM and YARM were locked with TRX ~ 0.97 and TRY ~ 0.96.

PMC

- Before any of the following work, I went to the PSL table and aligned the PMC. In fact, it has not been misaligned.

IMC

- It was claimed in the meeting today that the IMC had not been happy thesedays. I checked out what's happening.

- I found the IMC was still well aligned. Autolocker frequently stuck on a weak higher-order mode and couldn't recover TEM00 locking without help.

- I modified /opt/rtcds/caltech/c1/scripts/MC/mcdown for easier relocking on TEM00.

The MC_REFL_GAIN and MC_VCO_GAIN for relocking was set to be 27 and -3, in stead of 0 and 10, respectively.
This means that REFL_GAIN is not changed before and after the locking. Only VCO_GAIN is lowered for lock acquisition.
The corresponding lines in mcdown are excerpted here.

#set servo and boost gains for re-acquisition
#${ewrite} C1:IOO-MC_REFL_GAIN 0 &
${ewrite} C1:IOO-MC_REFL_GAIN 27 &
#${ewrite} C1:IOO-MC_VCO_GAIN 10 &
${ewrite} C1:IOO-MC_VCO_GAIN -3 &

We still have some chance of locking on higher-order modes. If I jiggle the VCO gain slider from -31 to 0, eventually I find TEM00.
I don't know how to do it in the script yet. For now, I increased tickle amplitude from 300 to 500.

/opt/rtcds/caltech/c1/scripts/MC/MC2tickleON

amp=300
=>
amp=500

- IMC was locked and aligned with the WFS. The WFS feedback offsets were offloaded to the alignment slider (via the MEDM button as usual).

TM SUS

- I wanted to use ASS. => The OL damping and ASC inputs are enabled for ETMX. The filter bank output of the ASS servos are all turned on.
- The arms were locked and aligned with ASS. The ASS servo offsets were offloaded to the ASC offset sliders (as usual).

- I found the X arm spot positionis moving slowly in pitch. I wanted to know what is causing this.

- Turned off all the OPLEV dampings for the four test masses.
- Took the power spectra of the OSEM output (e.g. C1:SUS-ITMX_LLSEN_OUT)

See attachment 1 (The DTT XML file can be found as /users/koji/151111/TM_SUS.xml )

- It seems that something is wrong with ITMX UL OSEM
  The signal level seems to be identical with the others. However, the noise level is huge. We need to check if the cable connection is OK.

- ITMY LL shows remarkably higher bounce mode although I can't tell if this is normal or not.

- The OPLEV dampings have been restored.

I looked at the PSL/IOO racks to check for which boards, if any, require an additional P2 interface, so that we can try and design a generic one for the IMC/CM boards and whatever else may require it. While searching the elog, I saw that Koji and Johannes had already done this, see Koji's elog in this thread. Some remarks:

1. D990155 seems to be unused in both PSL and IOO racks. The one in the PSL rack has some LEMO cables plugged in to the front panel, but they go nowhere. So I think that both of these are redundant (in the assessment below, only one was marked redundant).
2. In the PSL rack, the "TTFSS Interface", "PSL PMC SERVO", and "DAQ INTERFACE" (which I think is obsolete) cards all have their P2 connectors daisy chained together, going to a cross-connect. Kruthi and I traced this to be going to a cross connect marked "J23-PSLRACK-CCP". In the PSL wiring diagram of which we have a hardcopy in the control room, it looks like these channels are related to the RefCav? So I think this is not required to be interfaced to our new Acromag DAQ system. 

Conclusion: Only the IMC Servo and CM boards need their P2 connectors connected to Acromag.It would be helpful to remove the TTFSS Interface board and figure out what exactly the pin-mapping for the backplane connectors are, but I didn't do this today because there is a "High Voltage" line going to the Interface Board and I'm not actually sure of the signal chain for the FSS servo.

We have decided that the IFO alignment is bad enough that we're not ready to pump down.  PUMP ABORTED.

The IFO alignment is somewhat OK, in that the green and IR beams are flashing in the arms, and the return beams are overlapping at the BS.  However the beams appear to be not centered on any of the optics at the moment.  They are all displaced in yaw by ~0.5 to 1 cm or so in various directions.

From this we have decided that we need to step back and reattack the IFO alignment from square one.  Here is our current suggested procedure:

1. check ETM positions relative to what we think they should be on the drawings.  This is to verify that the ETMs were not placed in the wrong places laterally.
2. translate Y green axis north, centering green on ETMY and ITMY (by looking at cards).  North is the opposite direction from how the beams are displaced from the TM centers.
3. steer input pointing to overlap IR on green beam at BS, ITMY, and ETMY.  IR should visibly overlap green at both BS and ITMY, and we should be able to see IR on target in front of ETMY with ETMY face camera, and in ETMY trans camera.
4. center IR on ETMX by steering BS with DC bias.
5. align Y arm cavity for green resonance by adjusting ITMY.
6. adjust ITMX to achieve michelson fringes at AS
7. adjust PRM lateral translation to center beam on PRM, if needed
8. adjust SRM lateral translation to center beam on SRM, if needed
9. align PRC to see fringes
10. align SRC to see fringes
11. extract AS (no clipping)

 Once this is done, we will need to check the following:

• IPANG/IPPOS extraction
• pick-off extraction
• OPLEVs
• OSEMs
• green periscopes and green beam extraction at PSL

We've decided to stop for the night, get a good nights rest, and attack all of this tomorrow morning.

Steve and Jamie:  After Jamie checks the ITM free swingings, please put on the ITM heavy doors and start the pump!  For real this time!!! Yeah!

 Koji asked me to get the calibration of the PZT counts to Volts for the the X and Y ends. Yesterday, I went inside the lab and took some measurements from the digital readout of the PZT by giving in a DC offset(-5 to +5 volts) to PZT_Out and read out from these channels:

For X-end:  C1:ALS-X-SLOW_SERVO1_IN1

For Y-end:  C1:ALS-Y-SLOW_SERVO1_IN1

Since a 20dB attenuator was placed in the path of X-arm readout while taking the Transfer functions(Detail), I did the calibration measurements without removing it from the path. However, for the Y arm there was no attenuator in the readout path.

The obtained calibration values are :

X- arm PZT : [146.3 +/- 2.37 ]  counts/Volt 

Y- arm PZT :  [ 755.1 +/- 3.6]    counts/Volt

The attached are the fit and data plots for the above calibration.

1) Don't be brainless. Redo the fitting of the Y arm. Obviously the fit is not good.

2) How can you explain the value from the ADC bit and range?

e.g. +/-10V range 16bit ADC => 2^16/20 = 3276.8 count/V

 The PZT seems to saturate at around +/- 3500 counts. So for the Y arm, I excluded the saturated points and fitted the data points again.

As for the calibration number, we expect the 3276.8 count/V for +/- 10 V range of a 16 bit ADC but the number is ~800 count/V. I couldn't figure out a reason why the number is so different.

The new calibration values are :

X- arm PZT : [146.3 +/- 2.37 ]  counts/Volt   (with a 20 dB attenuator included in the path)

Y- arm PZT :  [ 797 +/- 3.6]    counts/Volt  

I will get the calibration in MHz/V of PZT actuation and check whether these numbers make any sense.

 The PZT actuation on the laser frequency in MHz/V ( assuming the previous calibration here of the PZT count/V) is :

X- arm: 33.7 MHz/V

Y- arm: 14.59 MHz/V

This number seems to be wrong by a factor of 10. 

So we[I and EricQ] decided to trace the cables that run into the ADC from the PZT Out. We found a black LEMO box in the path to ADC,which is  an anti-aliasing filter for each input channel. However,in theory the response of this filter should be flat up until a few kHz i.e. for  the DC gain it should be 1. But we will manually test it and look at the DC gain of the LEMO box.

 I did the following with the PZT Driver Board: 

•  With an expansion card attached to the driver board, I used an Agilent E3620A power supply to verify that the 15V and 24V supplies were reaching the intended ICs. It turns out that the +24 V supply was only meant to power some sort of on-board high voltage supply which provided the 100V bias for the PZTs and the MJE15030s. This device does not exist on the board I am using, jumper wires have been hooked up to an SMA connector on the front panel that directly provides 100V from the KEPCO high voltage supply to the appropriate points on the circuit.

•  All the AD797s as well as the LT1125CS ICs on the board were receiving the required +15V.

    

The next step was to check the board with the high-voltage power supply connected.

•  The output from the power supply is drawn from the rear output terminal strip of the power supply via pins TB1-2 (-OUT) and TB1-7 (+OUT). I used a length of RG58 coaxial cable from the lab and crimped a BNC connector on one end, and stripped the other to attach it to the above pins.

•  There are several options that can be configured for the power supply. I have left it at the factory default: Local sensing (i.e. operating the power supply using the keypad on the front of it as opposed to remotely), grounding network connected (the outputs of the power supply are floating), slow mode, output isolated from ground.
  

• I was unsure of whether the grounding network configuration or the 'positive output, negative terminal grounded' configuration was more appropriate. Koji confirmed that the former was to be used so as to avoid ground loops. When installed eventually, the eurocrate will provide the ground for the entire system.
• I then verified the output of the HV power supply using a multimeter from 2V up to 150V.
• I then connected the high voltage supply to the PZT driver board with a BNC-SMA adaptor, set, for a start, to output 30V. Ensured that the appropriate points on the circuit were supplied with 30V.
  

I then hooked up a function generator in order to simulate a control signal from the DAC. The signal was applied to pin 2 of the jumpers marked JP1 through JP4 on the schematic, one at a time. The signal applied was a 0.2 Vpp, 0.1 Hz sine wave.

•  The output voltage was monitored both using a DMM at the SMB output terminals, and at the monitor channels using an oscilloscope. The outputs at both these points were as expected.
• There are 4 potentiometers on the board, which need to be tuned such that the control output to the piezos are 50V when the input signal is zero (as this corresponds to no tilt). The gain of the amplifier stage (highlighted in the attached figure) right now is ~15, and I was using 30V in place of 100V, so an input signal of 2V would result in the output saturating. This part of the circuit will have to be tuned once again after applying the full 100V bias voltage. 
• Koji suggested decreasing the gain of the amplifier stage by switching out resistor R43 (and corresponding resistor in the other 3 stages on the board) after checking the output range of the DAC so that possibility of unwanted saturation is minimised. I need to check this and will change the resistors after confirming the DAC output range. 
• The potentiometers will have to be tuned after the gain has been adjusted, and with 100V from the high-voltage DC power supply. 

To Do:

• Switch out resistors
• Tune potentiometers with 100V from the HV supply
• Verify that the output from the board after all the tuning lies in the range 0-100V for all possible input voltages from the DAC.
• Once the output voltage range has been verified, the next step would be to connect a PZT to the board output, affix a mirror to the tip/tilt, and perform some sort of calibration for the PZT. 

 Summary:

Continued with tests on the PZT driver board. I made a few changes to replace defective components and also to modify the gain of the HV amplifier stage. I believe the board has been verified to be satisfactory, and is now ready for a piezo to be connected, tested and calibrated.

Changes made:

• I tested the board with the full 100V bias voltage today, working my way up from 30V in steps of about 20V and verifying the output at each stage.
• In order to deliver 100V to the board, it was necessary to change the maximum current limit on the KEPCO supply, which is set at default at ~1.6 mA. The KEPCO power supply placed near rack 1X2 (which I believe was used to power a piezo driver board) is labelled 150V, 12 mA, though I found that the board only drew 7mA of current when the power supply output 100V. I have set the limit to 10 mA for the time being.
• The potentiometer in the third stage (R44 in the schematic) was faulty so I replaced it with another 100K potentiometer, which was verified to work satisfactorily.
• We expect the DAC output to supply a voltage to the input of the PZT driver board in the range -10V to 10V. Today, I verified this by using my temporary break-out cable. I hooked this up to the DAC at 1Y4 and output a 3 Hz sine wave with amplitude of 32000 counts (the maximum) on channel 9. The output as observed on an oscilloscope (image attached) was a 10Vpp sinusoid, confirming the above hypothesis. As mentioned in my previous elog, the gain of the high-voltage amplifier stage is ~15, which would mean the output would saturate if the input were to be >6V. I have changed the gain of all 4 stages (M1-pitch, M1-yaw, M2-pitch and M2-yaw) to ~4.85 by swapping the 158k resistors (R43, R44, R69 and R70 in the schematic) for 51k resistors. 
• It was necessary to change the value of the biasing potentiometers after the change in gain so that 0 input voltage once again provided 50V at the output, as required by the PZTs for there to be no tilt. This was done and verified. This biasing voltage now is ~10.4V in all four stages.
• Having adjusted the gain, I tested the circuit over the expected full range of the input voltage from the DAC (from -10V to 10V) from the DS345 function generator (0.05Hz sinusoid). I monitored the output using a multimeter, as the monitor channels were peaking at ~7V, which was above the limit for the oscilloscope I was using. It was verified for all four channels that the output was between 0 V and 100 V (the safe range quoted in the datasheet for the tip-tilts, for this range of input voltages. So I think we are ready to connect a PZT to the board and conduct further tests, and calibrate the PZT. 

Pending Issues:

• Koji pointed out that there has to be an anti-imaging filter stage between the DAC output and the filter stage, which I had not considered till this point.Another subtle point is that the DAC output is differential while the driver boards have a single-ended input, which means we effectively lose half the range of the PZTs. 
• A suitable candidate is the D000186-rev D. Some information about the present state of this board is detailed in this elog. This board also solves the problem of the differential vs single input as the input to the AI board is differential while the output is single-ended. Koji has given me one of the boards he had collected. 
• Some changes will have to be made to this version of the board in order to make it compatible with the existing DAC. I will first have to measure the power spectrum of the DAC output to verify that the AI boards need notches at 64k and 128k. The existing notches are at 16k and 32k, and once the DAC power spectrum has been verified, I hope to affect the necessary changes by switching out the appropriate capacitors on the existing board. 
• The AI board is an extra element which I have now added to an updated wiring diagram, attached.

Revised Wiring Diagram:

DAC Max. Output Trace on Oscilloscope

I have updated the schematic of the D980323 PZT driver boards to reflect the changes made. The following changes were made (highlighted in red on the schematic):

• Gain of all four HV amplifier stages changed from ~15 to ~5 by swapping 158k resistors R43, R44, R69 and R70 for 51k resistors.
• Electrolytic 10 uF capacitors C11, C12, C29 and C31 swapped for 470pF, 500V mica capacitors.
• Fixed resistor in voltage divider (R35, R40, R59 and R64) replaced with 0 ohm resistors so as to be able to apply a bias of -10V to the HV amplifier
• The DC-DC Series components, which I think were originally meant to provide the 100V DC voltage, have been removed.
• The path between the point at which +100V DC is delivered and jumpers J3 and J6 has been shorted (bypassing R71 and R11 for J3, R73 and R12 for J6).
• Tantalum capacitors C38 and C39 have been replaced with electrolytic capacitors (47 uF, 25V). One of the original tantalum capacitors had burned out when I tried installing the board in the eurocrate, shorting out -15V to ground. At Koji's suggestion, I made this switch. The AD797s do not seem to be oscillating after the switch.
  
  
  

I have also changed the routing of the 100V from the HV power supply onto the board, it is now done using an SMA T-connector and two short lengths of RG58 cable with SMA connectors crimped on.

The boards are functional (output swings between 0 and 100V as verified with a multimeter for input voltages in the range -10V to +10V applied using a function generator.

Revised schematics:

The four IOO PZTs have been turned on in order to confirm the alignment of the IFO.

Once they are turned on, the spots (ITMX/ITMY/PRM/SRM) on the REFL CCD have been easily found.

When the X-arm was aligned to the green beam, it is easily locked to TEM00. Also some LG modes were visible.
i.e. There is some room to improve the mode matching.
The transmitted green at the PSL table is a bit too high and clipped by the first mirror on the table.

No IR flashes were found in either arms.

------------------

The below are the range and the set values of the strain gauge readback for the PZTs.
When the closed loop buttons are activated the PZTs are fixed at those values, if no one touches the set point dials.

            Min   Max   SetP | Display on the module
PZT1 Yaw    2.20  9.95  6.08 | Broken
PZT1 Pitch -0.011 8.89  4.40 | 1.58

PZT2 Yaw    0.737 9.94  5.37 | 2.17
PZT2 Pitch  0.010 9.42  4.71 | 1.89

[Aaron, gautam]

We did a quick check of this board today. Main takeaways:

• There are two voltages (HV pos and HV neg) that are output from this unit.
• Presumably, these goto different piezoelectric elements, referenced to ground. Are there any spec sheets for these describing the geometry/threshold voltages?
• The outputs are:
  • 
  • So with , we expect to be able to use +/- 7.5 V of DAC range.
• The trim pot had to be adjusted to realize ​.
• I assume 150V is some kind of damage threshold of the PZT, so there is no benefit to using 10V offset voltage (as this would result in 200 V at full range DAC voltages).

With the correct , we expect 0V from the DAC to result in 0 actuation on the mirror, assuming that an equal 75V goes to 2 PZTs mounted diametrically opposite on the optic. Hopefully, this means we have sufficient range to scan the input pointing into the OMC and get some sort of signal in the REFL signal (while length PZT is being scanned) which indicates a resonance. 

We plan to carve out some IFO time for this work next week.

I did a quick survey of the drive electronics for the PZT OM mirrors today. The hope is that we can correct for the clipping observed in the AS beam by using OM4 (in the BS/PRM chamber) and OM5 (in the OMC chamber).

Here is a summary of my findings.

• Schematic for (what I assume is) the driver unit (located in the short electronics rack by the OMC chamber/AS table) can be found here
• This is not hooked up to any HV power supply. There is a (short) cable on the back that is labelled '150V' but it isn't connected to anything. There are a bunch of 150V KEPCO power supplies in 1X1, looks like we will have to lay out some cable to power the unit
• The driver is also not connected to any fast front end machine or slow machine - according to the schematic, we can use J4, which is a Dsub 9 connector on the front panel, to supply drive signals to the two PZTs X and Y axes. Presumably, we can use this + some function generator/DC power supply to drive the PZTs. I have fashioned a cable using a Dsub9 connector and some BNC connectors for this purpose.

I hope these have the correct in-vacuum connections. We also have to hope that the clipping is downstream of OM4 for us to be able to do anything about it using the PZT mirrors. 

pzt2 mod signals matched slider vals for both pitch and yaw

  pzt2 yaw mon output = 6
  pzt2 pitch mon output = 11.3

From the PZT connector-converter board we determined the following pin-outs:

  X=Yaw:  red=1, white=14, black=3 
  Y=Pitch:  red=2, white=15, black=16

We believe that red is signal, white/black/shield are all ground.  We also believe (although this is from the PMC PZT) that the expected capacitance of the PZTs should be in the 100's of nF range.

Here are the readings from the two PZT dsub connectors:

  pin 1:14   PZT1 = ".003" on 2uF scale
             PZT2 = ".184"
   
  pin 2:15   PZT1 = ".002" on 2uF scale
             PZT2 = ".202"

So we think this means (given this crappy capacitance meter) that PZT2 is showing roughly 200nF, which sounds ok, but that PZT1 is indeed bad.

So next we investigate the PZT2 driver.

[Koji, Jenne]

Jamie and I pulled the whole PZT driver for both PZT1 and PZT2. 

Koji and I found that each HV power supply (the left-most module) has 2 fuses.  Both HV supplies (PZT1 and PZT2) have one blown fuse.  The "T2L250A" measures low resistance for both HV supplies, but the "T250mAL250V" measures Open for both HV supplies.

I have ordered 10 pieces of each kind of fuse, Next Day shipping, from DigiKey.

[Koji, Jenne]

We naively hoped that just replacing the fuses would fix the problem with the PZT HV drivers.  Alas, this was not the case. 

All of our investigations (other than visual inspections) today have been of the PZT2 module.  We have not applied any electricity to any PZT1 components/modules today.

After blowing a few more fuses (not good, we know, but we really didn't know what was going on at the time and were convinced that our changes between fuse installations should prevent fuse-blowing, including removing all modules except the HV driver), we found that the YAW driver for both PZT1 and PZT2 has severe discoloration on the PCB, and several resistors and other solder joints are damaged near some high voltage regulators. Pitch on PZT1 looks a tiny bit discolored, but doesn't look totally cooked like the 2 YAW modules do.  So, at least PZT1's Yaw was cooked before we started replacing fuses, since we haven't plugged it in yet today.

We then began some more methodical checks:

We bypassed the fuses by applying 10 Vpp = ~7.2 Vrms to the input side of the big transformer on the PZT2 HV driver board.  (This usually sees the 120 Vrms from the wall AC, so we were looking at things with a factor ~16 attenuation from what they normally see.)  We then measured things on the other side of the transformer, and made sure that they made some sense (one path for 5V stuff, one path for 15V stuff, one path for 180V stuff).  One of the rectifying diode bridges (the one for HV) didn't seem to be working, and didn't seem to have all of its pins connected, as if perhaps one or more diodes inside was destroyed.

When I went home for dinner, Koji continued looking at the low voltage supply capability of the PZT2 driver.  He removed the diode bridge from the HV path, and also removed the FET that lives on the output side of the HV driver board.  He was then able to energize the HV driver and the non-burnt pitch module.  So the +\-5 V and +\-15 V paths have been confirmed okay for PZT2's driver stuff.

What I will do tomorrow (when there is someone here to rescue me if I crispy-fry myself) is solder a wire to the now open pin of the backplane connector on the HV driver board, so that we can supply an external 180V to the pitch / yaw modules (although, obviously we won't be using the burnt yaw modules as-is).  Tomorrow I'll start by applying a nice small voltage, check that things still look okay, no shorts, and then I'll slowly increase the voltage until I get to the nominal 180V.

Since the low voltage stuff on the driver board is working, once we supply an external 180V (if successful), we should be able to re-install the PZT driver and drive PZT2. 

Since both Yaw modules that we have are burnt, I am proposing that we use the PZT2 HV board (which has been checked and modified this evening) with the 2 pitch modules.  Since we are not actively utilizing the strain gauge sensors, the fact that the calibrations on these modules are not exactly the same (rather, that PZT1's pitch is not the same as PZT2's yaw) should not matter at all.  This means that we will not be able to energize PZT1 at all, but that shouldn't be a problem.  Even when PZT 2 was working, PZT1 had very, very, very limited motion through the full range of applied voltage, so having no driver connected shouldn't have an impact.

 I connected a thick wire to pin 22 of the backplane connector of the transformer / power supply module of the PZT box.  This is the pin that +180V is supposed to go on, to be distributed to the other boards in the crate.  Last week I had drilled a hole in the front panel so the wire can come out (since no one on campus seems to have HV panel mount connectors in stock). 

While the transformer module was isolated, not touching anything else, I applied (slowly ramping up) 180V DC, and it all looked good.

When I plugged the module back into the crate (first turning off and disconnecting the HV), I blew the 250mA fuse again.  No HV yet, just the low voltage stuff that Koji had fixed last week.  :( 

We're now out of 250mA fuses, we're supposed to get a box of them tomorrow.

After the fuse-blowing fiasco earlier this afternoon, Koji and I took another look at the PZT controllers.

We put an ammeter in place of the fuse, and watched the current as we turned on the transformer module.  The steady-state current with no other modules plugged in is ~15mA.  However, there is a surge current right when you turn on the box which sometimes goes as high as 330mA.  Since the fuse is 250mA, this explains the fuse blowing, even though Koji had already checked out the low voltage path.

The high voltage line was connected, with +180V to the HV out pin of the backplane connector, and the (-) terminal of the power supply connected to signal ground on the board.

We inserted the PITCH module for PZT2, and we started with ~10V as our "high" voltage, and slowly increased the value (current at this time was ~60mA).  We also had a function generator plugged into the "MOD" input, which is where the epics slider goes, so that we should see a changing output voltage.  We never saw a changing output voltage.  Increasing the HV power supply didn't help. 

When Koji spun the "DC offset" knob really fast and then stopped, sometimes the output voltage as measured on the connector-converter board between the white and red wires would jump up, and then settle back down. It came back to the same value that it always was, but it was bizzarre that it would jump like that.  We suspect that that knob is an offset for use with the closed loop setting, so it isn't relevant for us anyway.  Watching the MON output, the value never changed, even when Koji did his fancy knob twirling.

We switched to the other PITCH module, and watched the output voltage on the MON output.  This time, with the function generator unplugged, so no modulation input (so we were expecting a steady DC output voltage) the number on the LCD and the MON output fluctuated wildly.  We plugged in the function generator, and the fluctuations did not change in approximate amplitude or DC offset.  They kind of looked the same. 

So, we have concluded that (a) the PZT drivers don't work, and (b) we don't understand why.  Therefore, we don't know how to fix them.

With that in mind, we are thinking of totally circumventing the PZT drivers. 

I plugged in the PZT1 connector converter board, which has Koji's circuit that he made last time when PZT1 died.  I plugged the ribbon cable which goes to the PZT, and the +\- 30V power supply, and the PZT responded!  Just plugging in the power supply puts the PZTs near the center of their nominal range.  I then put a function generator on the epics inputs for pitch and yaw (one at a time), and saw the spot move around at the ~1Hz that I was applying.  Yay!

What I think I'll do for tonight - modify the other connector converter board so that I can just use 2 HV power supplies (current limited) to steer the PZT.  I set up a TV monitor next to the PZT electronics (1Y3? 1Y4?  I forget), and it's connected to output 20 of the video switch, so I can watch the AS camera and move the PZTs by hand.  Then maybe I can try to align some stuff. (Evan is coming to work tonight, so if I electrocute myself, someone will be here to call 5000)  Koji suggested buying 2 single-channel thorlabs piezo drivers, like we have on the PSL table for the FSS loop.  These take in 0-10V and output either 0-75V, 0-100V or 0-150V (depending on which setting you choose).  These cost $712 each. This would be a more permanent solution than me just sitting out there, since we could once again control PZT2 via epics.

Note to self:

The ENV-40 amplifiers that we have supply -10V through +150V .... so don't exceed those limits.

piezojena link

[ Yuki, Gautam ]

I fixed the input terminal that had been off, and made sure PZT driver board performs as we expect. 

At first I ran a simulation of the PZT driver circuit using LTspice (Attached #1 and #2). It shows that when the bias is 30V the driver performs well only with high input volatage (bigger than 3V). Then I measured the performance as following way:

1. Applied +-15V to the board with an expansion card and 31.8V to the high voltage port which is the maximum voltage of PS280 DC power supplier C10013.
2. Terminated input and connectd input bias to GND, then set offset to -10.4V. This value is refered as elog:40m/8832.
3. Injected DC signal into input port using a function generator.
4. Measured voltage at the OUT port and MON port.

The result of this is attached #3 and #4. It is consistent with simulated one. All ports performed well.

• V(M1_PIT_OUT) = -4.86 *Vin +49.3 [V]
• V(M1_YAW_OUT) = -4.86 *Vin +49.2 [V]
• V(M2_PIT_OUT) = -4.85 *Vin +49.4 [V]
• V(M2_YAW_OUT) = -4.86 *Vin +49.1 [V]
• V(M1_PIT_MON) = -0.333 *Vin +3.40 [V]
• V(M1_YAW_MON) = -0.333 *Vin +3.40 [V]
• V(M2_PIT_MON) = -0.333 *Vin +3.40 [V]
• V(M2_YAW_MON) = -0.333 *Vin +3.40 [V]

The high voltage points (100V DC) remain to be tested.